Just imagine walking into your classroom after greeting all of your students to find a calm classroom. Students are getting their materials for the day, putting away their backpacks, and already working on a meaningful 5th grade morning work task. Maybe there is soft music playing in the background. Students are prepared for the lesson and are already turning their minds to school. They know what is going to happen during class time, and they know what they should be completing. And you haven’t even addressed the whole class yet. You take a sip of your still hot coffee and smile to yourself.
Isn’t that the dream?
It doesn’t have to just be a dream! When I started incorporating 5th grade morning work into my classroom, I began to make that dream a reality.
Today I’m sharing 3 ideas for 5th grade morning work so that you too can have that calm classroom to enter each morning.
What is bellwork?
Sometimes morning work is referred to as bellwork or do nows. Each of these phrases refers to the same idea. Essentially students have a task that they complete to start off the lesson. Students get into the routine of bellwork and begin to get started on the task without much teacher redirection.
This works for 2 reasons: 1 students are turning on their minds to engage with the current topic. And the 2nd reason bellwork is so helpful is that it gives you as the teacher a moment to remember to take attendance and check in with a few students.
The first 5 minutes of a day or class period help set the tone for the rest of class. So by starting off with morning work, students know that they are there to learn. I usually use this time to review a prior topic, the perfect time to squeeze in a little bit of spiral review. You can also use this time to engage students in a writing prompt, open-ended question, or something to ponder. Depending on the subject you teach (or subject you start with in a more traditional elementary setup) there’s a wide variety of options.
These do nows, bellwork, or morning work activities help my classroom management so much. I have a whole blog post about what classroom management looks like in my upper elementary classroom.
Math Bellwork Ideas
Starting off with my favorite subject, math bellwork ideas are the easiest to think of. For my 5th grade morning work, I like to use a number of the day routine to help spiral concepts while still keeping up with a number sense. Even in the upper grades, number sense still holds a lot of value.
5th Grade Morning Work Idea: Number of the Day
My number of the day routine is simple. Students see the day’s number on my morning slide, then open their math interactive notebook (ehh….I use a folder but the same idea) and complete the prompts. The prompts stay the same for the entire week so students are able to review a skill, let’s say rounding decimals, for a week but the numbers switch out each day.
I like having a week of math bellwork already printed and ready to go so that the only thing I have to think about is switching out a number. This makes preparing for my 5th grade morning work so much easier. The more things I can think about ahead of time, the better.
Creating my bellwork is part of my batch prepping strategy. I talk more about what batch prepping is over in this blog post if you want to learn more.
Solve Math Word Problems
Another idea for math bellwork is word problems. Especially if the word problems are open-ended enough to allow for multiple strategies to be used to solve. Students can independently try out a word problem at the start of class, and then collaborate with their peers during the lesson. If you want to learn more about teaching how to solve math word problems then check out this blog post.
5th Grade Morning Work Ideas for ELA
Do you start off your day with reading, writing, or grammar? These 5th grade morning work ideas should help you brainstorm for your own bellwork questions.
Independent Reading
The first idea is to offer independent reading time. It is so difficult to fit everything into an ELA block so using the first 10 minutes or so of silent reading can really set the tone for your day. This is also a silent activity that depending on your teaching style, could be just what you need as the teacher.
Daily Journal Prompts
A daily journal prompt is another 5th grade morning work idea. Simply show a prompt on your daily slides with timers for classroom and give students time to write. 5 minutes would be a perfect amount of time for students to jot about a few bellwork questions. And those 5 minutes give you time to take attendance or prepare materials for the day.
5th Grade Morning Work: Grammar Practice
This was my morning routine when I taught 3rd grade and it really made creating morning work easy. I would take a student’s writing journal and anonymously type up their sentence exactly how they had written it. We would then practice editing the mistakes as a class. I would also throw in my own sentences with mistakes to change things up. A real-world way to practice grammar.
5th Grade Morning Work for Science
Teach science? I do too! Math/Science Combo might just be the best job yet, but I’ll save that tangent for another day.
Vocabulary
I use science bellwork as a time to review the previous day’s lesson. This is usually a bellwork question that is from their notes sheet for the week, or a reflection question from a lab. This is another great way to squeeze in vocabulary practice. Recalling definitions or drawing a picture of a concept is one of the ways I engage their brain and focus back to science.
5th Grade Morning Work Idea: Stem Bins
Another science bellwork idea is STEM bins. If you haven’t heard of these, Brooke Brown over on Teach Outside the Box created the idea of offering students different building supplies and letting them create their own things. She has prompts and cards that can guide students or they can stay open ended.
Morning Meeting Activities
Don’t want to jump into a subject right away? Start your day off with morning meeting activities. If you haven’t heard of morning meetings before, I’ll let my friend Allie explain the ins and outs to you! Inside her blog post titled What is a Morning Meeting and How to Enjoy it in Upper Elementary she explains everything you need to know about morning meetings.
Morning meeting activities can help build your classroom community and set the tone for the rest of your day. From greetings for morning meeting to activities, games and closings, morning meetings can have a little bit of everything. I have only used morning meeting activities causally in my classroom, usually after a long break or when I feel like we need to focus on how our class is running. I’d love to dive into morning meeting activities more!
Here’s my inspiration for morning meeting activities
Morning Meeting Activities: 9 Ideas to Tray Today
Morning Meeting Ideas & Activities
10 Morning Meeting Activities for a Contact Free Classroom
10 Morning Meeting Activities Kids are Bound to Love
Greetings for Morning Meetings
I actually use these greetings for morning meetings when I create new table groups. This helps students know about the people they sit with and helps start the community at their table.
Keeping Morning Meeting Greetings Fresh and Fun
15 Fun Greetings, Shares and Activities for Safe Morning Meetings
10 Ideas for Morning Meeting Greetings Students Love
I’d love to know what you do for 5th grade morning work? Comment below!
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